


Questions Hang Around You

by Davechicken



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 01:19:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9267365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: And a relationship begins.





	

Chirrut asks Baze what he sees a lot. Baze is always happy to answer, because – well – it’s the right thing to do. He never begrudges the question, though it provokes many in himself that he can’t quite work out how to word, or even if he should. 

He finds he sees things more clearly, more sharply, because he’s forever assessing things for someone else’s eyes. Even when Chirrut isn’t around, Baze goes through life exploring what he ‘sees’ in words inside his head. He keeps his mind open at every moment, ready to react for both their sakes should Chirrut need his assistance.

“You know… you can ask,” comes the voice from behind, which shouldn’t make him jump as much as it does.

Everything about the other man is bright, vibrant, and intrusive. Not in a negative sense, oh anything _but_. He’s just… dialled up beyond the normal levels. If everyone else is moonlight, or sunlight, then Chirrut is a blazing nova. 

Baze doesn’t know why that is. 

“Ask what?”

“Questions hang around you, unfinished. A voice about to lift.”

“I don’t have any—“

“You have plenty. It’s normal, you know: to want to ask. It’s normal to be curious about the things you do not know. Why do you think I ask you so many questions?”

“What if I’m offensive?”

“You looking to learn is not offensive. You assuming you already _know_ something, that can be offensive. If you’re seeking after the truth, you are seeking after something good, my friend.”

There’s a momentary pause, then the younger man taps his staff to Baze’s legs.

“Plus, if you annoy me, I can always smack you and pretend it was an accident.”

Baze feels a bit of the tension bleed, and he turns, feeling the dusty stone under his rear as he swivels. “Is it rude when I tell you things without you asking, or try to help?”

“No, you are merely being generous in spirit. It does not offend me, but it might be polite to ask someone _else_ if they require help, instead of assume. However, as I asked for your assistance in the first place, you were never rude to me.”

“So… ask… don’t assume.”

“Yes.”

“…what if… would it seem rude if I was bringing attention to something?”

“I’m pretty sure everyone can see my impairment, unless they are also blind. But you could simply offer blanket assistance and that would be helpful, if you were concerned about offending someone.”

Baze isn’t done yet, though. He’s had so many questions he’s wanted to ask. “What about asking you about how it happened, or how it – how it affects you?”

“I’m comfortable answering.”

Baze waits.

“You haven’t asked.”

“It was implied,” he sighs, knowing this is just teasing. His grumpiness is part of their verbal contract. 

“I wasn’t always blind, but it feels like it, now. I can… use my other senses, and the Force guides me.”

“How do you fight, though? You always seem to know where to go. I’ve seen you take down more people in one go than Guardians twice your size.”

“Would you like me to train you?”

Train him. Baze’s first reaction – although he kicks himself for it – is one of incredulity. It’s just his natural instinct, because Chirrut—

“You need to stop thinking of me as broken,” comes the soft voice. “I’m not broken. Like one ship has a cargo hold, and another has ion cannon… we are all of us made for our purpose.”

“I didn’t think of you as broken,” he replies, guiltily. 

“You did, and it’s alright. I did, too, for a time. I wasn’t always this person.”

“What changed?”

“I realised the attention I paid with my eyes could be put elsewhere. I can show you, if you like.”

A deep breath, and he nods. “Please.”

***

The makeshift blindfold isn’t perfect. Baze has his eyes closed underneath the fabric strip, which knots around his hair. It’s tight, to make sure it doesn’t slip, and that bites into his head a little. Even with that, and his eyes closed, he can still sense broad strokes of light and dark. 

Which is why Chirrut then flicks the light switch off. Aside from the sudden bath of gloom, the click of the switch is a visceral point of sound as he tries to anticipate and understand the world beyond him. He’s been looking so hard, for so long, that being robbed of his vision is now more acutely felt.

“Listen. Listen to my footsteps, listen to my breathing. Remember how long my stride is, measure the distance between the falls so you know how far I’ve moved. Listen to my breathing, so you know how hard I’m working.”

The quarterstaff has never been Baze’s weapon of choice. He prefers range: a scope on a target, his finger on the trigger. Distance means you’re safe, means you’re home free.

The staff requires you to be close enough for them to slit your throat. Even with the arc of it to swing a bubble around you, a feint or a dodge could leave you wide open for any number of attacks.

He retests his grip on the wood, knocking the two ends back and forth as he reassures himself of the centre of its gravity. 

“You will go to bed sore, tonight.”

“You won’t go easy on me?”

“Would an opponent?”

“This is training, Chirrut.”

“Training for real combat.”

The first swipe catches behind one knee, and Baze’s automatic response is to bend his leg, and swirl the stick around to where Chirrut _had_ been, but that gets him nowhere and a second hit connects with the opposite shoulder from the front. He doesn’t even know how Chirrut moved so far, so fast. 

“No, do not go where I attacked from: I am already gone. Move to where I _will_ be.”

“How can I do that without my eyes, or being a mind-reader?”

“Then read my mind. You know how a body can move: the joints, the muscle, the angles. You know how a staff can move. You can apply the two together, and remember momentum, inertia…”

“Might as well take a gun and fire it,” Baze mutters, darkly. He rights himself again, and tries to listen.

“Visualise the possibilities, if it helps you. Draw a picture of me in your mind, and follow it.”

“Is that how you do it?”

“I imagine the other people, yes. It is like a… painting, but only of potential. It is like a cascading possibility, and I listen for the sounds, and the Force, and the currents in the air to snap my focus on the truth.”

“…give me a moment.”

“Of course.”

Baze tries to listen very, very hard. He can hear the soft rustle of clothing as his own chest expands, but he tries to minimise his own sounds and reach beyond. He doesn’t ‘feel’ the Force, even though he knows it is there. Or maybe he does, and he doesn’t know he’s doing it. He can’t control it, but he can open his mind to the possibilities…

Chirrut. He knows what the man looks like intimately well. When no one else is in the room, he can watch his face in a way he can’t look at anyone else, because it would be rude. He’s not sure if it’s still rude to steal his face like that, or if Chirrut wouldn’t mind. There’s no rules of eye-contact or decorum, and so he continues his robbery, day and night.

Chirrut’s face is always pleased. Baze – for the longest time – thought that was _smugness_. No one was that happy, that positive, that often. It was either smugness, or a lie. 

But no. The more he was around him (and Baze found he was around him more with every passing day), the more he realised that was just _Chirrut_. He looked for the positive in every situation, and he saw something good in everything he looked at (metaphorically speaking). 

He imagines the smile, and from that the rest of his face. Around his lips and above his teeth. The curve of his neck, the strong shoulders and lean body. The slender lines, broken in direction by clothing that flows slower than the form below. The places where his layers tie together, the weight of his weapon.

Baze is somewhat concerned by how much he appears to have internalised his sense of the other man, when he’s not even sure what colour eyes their Master has. But here is Chirrut, alive perfectly and completely in his mind, a construct of detail and movement.

“You are ready.” Chirrut’s voice isn’t a question, and Baze realises he felt that certainty a moment before the word. 

A solidity, a decision. His own, perhaps. He nods, and hefts the weapon once more.

The next swing nearly gets past his guard, but he blocks just in time. Instead of thinking about katas or patterns, he imagines the feel of the weapon as it slides through Chirrut’s grip, and the knowledge of where would be good to hit _him_. He feels the patterns unfolding, and he spins to block the next, the next, the one after. 

Before long, it isn’t even a case of ‘sparring’, it’s seeing Chirrut’s steps and gestures and moving to meet them, like a dance. He isn’t trying to beat him, to overpower him, or to make a point. It’s for the sheer love of the swirling sense of them both. The way the staves connecting sends little sparks up through his wrists to his elbows, and the whip of his hair about his face. The smile he _knows_ is radiating out from Chirrut’s face, and the light effervescence in his calves and biceps from exertion.

“That is enough for today,” Chirrut says, trapping Baze’s wrist under his staff. 

The move takes him by surprise, jarring him from their steps. A note of discord in amongst the music, and he frowns. “We just started.”

“Check your chrono.”

It’s… it’s been over an hour. How? He’s sure they haven’t been working for that long.

“It’s time for our meditation session.”

Baze doesn’t want to go.

***

No one questions why Baze trains as much with his eyes closed as not. He doesn’t do it in front of others, but they come across him from time to time. He rehearses excuses (reasons, not excuses) in his head: what if someone used a smoke grenade? What if I had to fight in the dark? What if there’s environmental reasons I can’t see?

Those would all be tactically sound, but it’s another reason that’s more pressing. He trains like this because it makes him feel closer to Chirrut, and he gets the other Guardian’s undivided attention. He bathes in the golden ringing of his voice, and imagines his body so intently that he can see the muscles slide under his clothes.

It’s starting to haunt his dreams, that body. No, not just the body. It’s the man inside, with the smile, the eyes, the way of understanding the world. Baze is pulled along by the gravity of Chirrut’s light steps, and though he tries to deny it, he can’t, not to himself.

He’s… entranced by the man. And it is only getting worse by the day.

***

“Would you teach me your weapons?”

“…blasters?”

“All kinds of rifle and guns.”

“Do I need to point out the obvious to you?”

“Please. It clearly isn’t, or I would already know what you were going to say.”

 _Don’t see me as broken_ , he’d said, once. But there was unbroken, and then there was stupid. If you couldn’t hear the breathing, or the heartbeat, how could you aim? How could you know you wouldn’t inflict collateral damage?

“It isn’t… a good idea, Chirrut.”

“If you don’t teach me, I will do it without your help.” For the first time a hint of unease on his brow, and pain in his expression. “You are the best with ranged weapons.”

“And when you shoot someone?”

“You’ll be there to help me.”

“Not always! What if you shoot someone when I’m not around?”

“I wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t safe. I am not a _fool_ , Baze.”

“No? Well… I just don’t think you should.”

Chirrut’s hands tighten around the pole, twisting in frustration. “I am not a fool, Baze.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You implied it.”

“I… fine. You want a lesson in weapons?” He unholsters the holdout blaster on his thigh, and tosses it over, watching as Chirrut catches it. “There.”

“Baze… please. I want to _learn_.”

“You point the long bit towards who you want to kill.”

Chirrut puts the weapon down, and rises. He walks out of the room, and Baze is left to his own devices.

***

Okay, so it had been a dick move. He didn’t really mean to be rude to him, but… surely Chirrut had to realise he had some limitations? Just like a woman couldn’t piss against a wall without wetting her clothes, you just… couldn’t do everything. Even if you asked the Force really, really nicely.

Baze was just trying to protect him from getting urine-soaked pants. That was all. Urine-soaked pants and innocent people killed. Also: Chirrut. Chirrut killed.

Baze was there for the distance, and Chirrut was… there for the close-range. It was the way of things. He could learn Chirrut’s ways, but Chirrut…

…was… going to find a way, with or without his help. And after all the coaching he’d so freely offered, why wouldn’t Baze help him? 

Steeling himself, he went to find the other Guardian.

***

Chirrut sits with his legs folded, his arms resting above. His expression inscrutable, and Baze knows he knows he’s there. 

“I’ll train you.”

“I might shoot someone.”

“You might be aiming at them,” Baze retorts. He watches the other’s face closely, reading for tiny expressions. 

It’s there. The first traces of his old smile. “With you to help me, I am sure I will hit at least one person I am aiming at.”

“And no one you weren’t.”

“And no one I wasn’t.”

***

Teaching Chirrut is an experience. Baze walks him through all the mechanisms and controls, all the safety features and the options. He sits or stands beside or behind, and guides his hands over the instinctive gestures he’s memorised deep in his muscles, and feels hands move under his. 

Chirrut learns the weight, the recoil, the sound, the smell. He learns the range, and the accuracy, and he starts to hit more targets than he misses. Much of it is targets that he’s already memorised, and then it becomes moving drones he can sense. 

Worryingly, he’s better than some of the other Guardians. If he could see, Baze wonders if Chirrut would better him at this, too. 

And worse is the touching. This means even more contact than training with staves, or maybe it’s because he knows what he’s doing, so there’s no distraction of learning. He pulls his hands away quickly when he’s done showing, and feels his face burn with an unfamiliar warmth.

Chirrut is an attractive man. He is. He’s also funny, and compassionate, and intelligent, and strong. He’s a huge long list of positive attributes, and Baze is drawn to every single one. 

“I could… modify some sights,” Baze mutters, as he pulls back from the strange, electric contact. “Put in feedback. Audio, or tactile. Different for when the target sensor lands on organic, or electronic…”

“That would be a very big help.”

Baze doesn’t actually know how to do that, but he’s sure he knows someone who _can_.

_***_

Okay, so it took longer than it should have, but Baze has a lightbow bowcaster in his hands. It’s powerful, with limited noise and recoil, and it has modified sights that should help Chirrut augment his existing abilities. 

It also comes with a power toggle. You know. So he can get used to things at a non-lethal setting, before he’s allowed to explode anyone’s heads. 

Chirrut’s holding his staff in both hands, sitting peacefully when Baze enters. He walks over, anxious all of a sudden. They’re close, but this is an expensive – and well thought-through – gift. He’s going to think it’s weird. He should just… go.

“Baze?”

“Mmm?”

“Did you want to talk to me?”

No. Yes. No. Damnit. He sits next to him, and shoves the weapon at him, knowing he’ll take it. “I got you this.”

He watches as dainty touches map out the shape of it, and the smile – always there – intensifies a hundredfold, making his stomach skip. 

“Will you teach me all the controls?”

“Yeah.”

***

Chirrut has been toying with him, that much is apparent. Baze is barely holding up against the flurry as the other man whirls around him in insane circles and figure-eights. His weapon seems five steps ahead of everything, and Baze’s _whole_ self is thrown into _blocking_ , without a single shred of himself for offensive.

Smack, twirl, smack, spin, crash, twist, bend.

Baze almost just wants to watch him. His eyes are unbound this time, and he isn’t sure if he’d do better with, or without his vision.

Chirrut’s built more for this than he is. Baze is heavy-set, ponderous like an armoured vehicle. Baze’s feet are made for planting, his shoulders for shoving. Chirrut’s feet are made for dancing, his body for twisting like the Force itself. 

They are so very different, and he… kind of loves that.

Around and around, and Baze decides to use his only advantage: strength and weight. He smacks his staff down on Chirrut’s, trying to bear through the grip and force him to submit. He knows it likely won’t work (he’d be better with his cannon, if he really intended to fight), but he’s still going to try.

His shoulder gets as far as Chirrut’s hip, but then there’s a crash and he’s not sure _how_ a _solid_ and _unbending_ piece of weaponry can tie knots around him, but here it is. It bends and folds and swirls and chokes and wraps him up in lines of stinging pain.

He’s on the ground, with Chirrut straddling his hips, and the wooden stick now inflexible and unyielding across his throat. 

Swallowing is almost impossible.

“Can you feel it?” Chirrut asks, his sightless face turning, as if feeling for a breeze.

“Feel… what?” Baze can feel two things. Three. The staff, the heat around him where Chirrut’s legs touch, and the third, vulgar thing.

“The questions. They fill the air with possibility.”

Baze is far too distracted to feel ‘questions’. Mostly he feels a continuous scream inside of his skull, and a need to not move in case Chirrut feels… well. How ‘into’ this he is. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me, then?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to ask,” Baze replies.

His own staff is somewhere knocked away, and his hands are up – pinned below Chirrut’s – his body entirely submissive at the other’s physical onslaught. 

“You want to know if I want to kiss you, too.”

Damnit. Though Chirrut won’t see, his face is hot and prickly with the truth in that question, and Baze’s eyes track over the other man’s face. Over and over, looking for mocking, for disgust, for… anything that could tell him not to go on.

“You haven’t answered the question,” Baze says, his voice scratchy.

“You haven’t yet asked it.”

Baze pulls the staff tighter, choking himself, and smiles as Chirrut follows, ‘toppling’ over, even though he doesn’t need to. He’s got perfect balance, and it’s only an excuse for their lips to meet. The other Guardian’s lips smile against him, and Baze ignores the slow asphyxiation over his larynx as they kiss very, very, very gently. Like fingers learning his face, Chirrut seems to memorise his lips with his own. 

Before long, Baze doesn’t know if the light-headedness is the kissing, or the choking, or a combination. He bends one knee, and flips them over. The staff goes into the soft skin below Chirrut’s jaw, and he gently rubs down against him, feeling for any interest.

“Perhaps we should take this somewhere… no one will walk in on us?” Chirrut asks.

Baze huffs. “When I’m on top?”

“Well… you could kiss me first.”

He lets go of the staff, and holds the other’s face in two hands. This kiss is a little more forceful, and he licks across his lips before they part, and he can taste his tongue. It’s good, so good, and he doesn’t know why he waited this long.

***

Back in Chirrut’s room, and he’s nervous. There’s no reason why they can’t be in a relationship, other than the risk of it going wrong and being unable to avoid one another. He knows Chirrut, he knows him better than anything, so the chances are high this will—

“Baze… trust in what the Force tells you.”

“The Force never writes clearly.”

“It does, it’s just that the questions we ask of it do not have simple answers.”

‘Should I have a relationship with my best friend’ seems to have a simple answer, Baze thinks. But his head is full of confusion, and his body is loud, and his sense is less. He sits beside him on the edge of the bed, not sure what he’s supposed to be doing.

Fingers on his face, without asking. They are beyond that point, now, and he feels a slight smile turn his expression upwards at the contact. Soothing, warm, kind. Everything Chirrut is. 

“What if–?”

“Baze.”

“Yes?”

“I want to try, if you do.”

“What if we are no good together?”

“Then I’ll still have a friend.”

The fingers move into his hair, and stay there. Baze lets his own eyes close, and he strokes through the shorter hair on Chirrut’s face. He’s never mapped his expression out like Chirrut has his, and he takes the opportunity to do so. Over the soft, fuzzy ridges of his eyebrows, into the dips around his temples. The curves of his ears, the smoothness of his jaw. His thumbs feel the extent of his smile, and then he kisses it again. 

“I care about you too much for this to go wrong.”

“It won’t.”

“You say that as if you know.”

“I do.” 

He opens his eyes, and sees Chirrut’s sightless ones fixed on his. They breathe close by for a moment, and the fingers in his hair tug lightly at his scalp. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I just… want to remember this,” Baze admits. “I want to memorise it forever.”

“You sentimental fool.” 

Baze grins, and strokes his fingers along from under one ear, around the curve of his jaw, pushing under the folds of his robes to stroke at his collarbone. He feels the thudding pulse where his thumb presses in, and he moans very softly at the hands that cross to start undressing him.

Like a ritual, or another staff-dance, they work around the other. The Force _must_ will it, because they flow into the other’s open spaces, as if it’s meant to be. He pushes clothing back, and they shrug out of the fabric, letting it drop to the mattress beside them.

Baze has seen his companion all but nude before, because they’ve trained together for years. He knows – fleetingly – the colour of his skin, the dips and hollows over muscle bulges. He knows the few scars that grace his body, but that’s not like seeing it _now_. Seeing it now is like never knowing the Force, and then welcoming it into your heart. 

He doesn’t use his eyes, feeling for the slide of supple skin under his whorled fingertips. His lips move to suck and kiss that tempting throat, and he throws Chirrut down onto his back, enjoying the sudden rake of fingernails over his broad shoulders. It stings, but only lightly, and he smiles as a leg bends up and around his waist, holding him against his torso.

“Don’t stop,” Chirrut begs.

And has Baze ever heard him beg before? He’s not sure, but the hungry tone has a bright, explosive, heavy feeling inside his ribcage, and he suckles harder. Chirrut writhes under him, and Baze’s thumb catches a nipple, which makes even _better_ sounds erupt out.

Clothing needs to be gone. That much is clear. He sits up, and pulls all of his own off, then stands to shimmy his pants down. He’s normally not self-conscious (being around so many other Guardians has made casual nudity common-place) but he feels it for a moment… until he realises Chirrut _literally can’t see_. 

Which makes him laugh, because why was he so worried? He kicks off his boots, and watches as Chirrut pushes his own down. He moves to lie beside him, and reaches for his hand. “Would you like to see?”

“I would love to.” Chirrut lets his hand be guided, and Baze watches his eyebrows lift. “You _are_ a big boy.”

“Chirrut, that is not sexy,” he complains, fighting laughter.

“It wasn’t meant to be. Your frown needed wiping away.”

“You are a fool.”

“Perhaps, but I’m a fool with my hands full,” Chirrut purrs, and his fingers deftly stroke over Baze’s shaft, as if he’s learning and easing his arousal slowly higher. 

It feels good, and Baze reaches over, his thick fingers and palm stroking flat over Chirrut’s own erection. This isn’t going to last very long, because Baze wants to rut into his palm and it’s taking a lot of effort not to.

Chirrut’s palm and fingers are quick and light, and Baze pushes his face back into his neck to speed him up. He nips at the arch of his collarbone, and laps hard to encourage him. Harder licks, and the fingers twist and turn. Baze can’t think properly, but the stroking is so wonderful, so good… the fact that Chirrut’s the one to do it, to fill his body with Light and happiness… 

“You are beautiful,” his companion breathes, his other hand feeling for his expression as he keeps the stroking going. “Let me feel your face when you climax. I want to know how you look.”

“Happy,” Baze grunts, and grabs at him to hold on, rocking his body into that clever palm. He is. He’s so happy. The arousal spikes hard, and he’s breathless for a moment as the spurts are pulled from him, the fingers still milking his cock until he’s utterly spent. 

Chirrut lifts the hand from his cock, and brings it to his mouth. Baze watches with a twinge in his empty balls as he delicately licks it clean, commenting on how nice it tastes. It’s torture to watch, and then he realises Chirrut’s dick is still firm against his thigh.

Well, if he’s going to taste, so will Baze.

Though he’s feeling sleepy-buzzed from the climax, he turns around on the bed so his legs reach for the pillow. He nuzzles at the curled serpent on Chirrut’s belly, and licks over the length of it. “Can I?”

“ _Please_ , please do…”

Baze cups his balls, and pinches the base of his shaft to hold it still. It smells of him, and when he starts by licking, then wraps his lips around the head, he’s rewarded by curse words he didn’t know Chirrut even _knew_. 

More fingers in his hair, stroking at his scalp, and he tries to suck his way up and down. He hasn’t done it, but he’s seen the odd holo (who hasn’t?) and the principle is pretty clear. Even clearer are the moans his – his _lover_ – makes, and the knowledge that they’re something _more_ now has him urged faster.

Chirrut’s hips move slightly below, and Baze scrunches at the sac in his hand. He lifts from his dick to gaze up at the other man, whose head is back and staring, sightless, at the ceiling.

“I don’t know if I’ll swallow, but you can come inside my mouth,” he offers.

“P-please.”

It’s worth it to see him fall apart like this, to be less-than-smooth and suave. He’s going ragged, and Baze starts to slurp and slightly choke over the length of him, his lips bumping into his fist, and he reaches out with his senses to memorise it all: the taste of his salty skin, the closeness of his pulse in his cock. The fingers in his hair, the press of bedsheets to his bare skin. Chirrut’s breathing shatters to shreds, something he rarely even does in training, and Baze smiles as he feels it on the air.

A question. A question, and he uses the finest hint of teeth and a rub of his tongue to make him spurt. The sudden swelling of his cheeks and the emotion crescendoing is almost as good as his own orgasm, and he gulps and gurgles, waiting for as long as he can before he lifts his head and licks at his lips. 

Chirrut purrs, melting into the bed, and reaches for him. “Come… kiss me.” 

“There’s a question, Chirrut. Don’t you feel it?”

“There is, but you know the answer.”

He does. He wipes his lips on the back of his hand, and turns to lie with his nose pushed to his partner’s. 

Of course he knows the answer. He knows _Chirrut._ And Chirrut knows him.


End file.
